today on the week's top stories of loyalist clashes across northern a six week decision the union flag over city hall but just. the global head. internet for. his family blames the u.s. criminal justice system for pushing him over the edge. the french president has tougher security at home the country's intervention in. eleven civilians dead. yes we can't. shut down guantanamo bay still rings hollow with more than one hundred sixty people held. without charge or trial eleven years after it opened.

with a look back at the past seven days top stories and the latest developments this is the weekly. at least twenty nine police officers were injured on saturday in belfast as violent clashes in northern ireland reach into a six week the unrest was triggered by belfast city council's decision to fly the union flag above city hall for only eighteen days a year the latest clashes broke out after about a thousand unionists marching on city hall were tapped by locals in a catholic area police were forced to use water cannons and plastic bullets the angry mob. has been following the protests at the same. class is breaking out once again. as you can see the police say just trying to push back the crowds

a. huge number of police about the fact he fights like this becoming all too common other to think going to have been helped by the fact that many feel inflammatory political language has helped to whip up the tension here on the street. recreational rioting that's what some people are calling it. you can see the fates had. just. brought the police responding when there was a concert in the sun. again about the flag but the scale and intensity of that. this is a much much more than just that he students the director of the east belfast mission creep is working with young protesters to try to calm the tensions some kids are doing it for fun or doing it for more sinister motives in terms of control terms of par in terms of ego some are doing it because it's sexier than the playstation you

know young girls are doing it because girls even with young children we've seen on the streets who i don't think a fully realized what their actions can result in what they're just right there and somewhere stopping the law and yet there's nothing about it what are the protesters here asking. just for one our flag back up on water and pays to get off their back ses peter robinson least you're not silly not them he was the one that had to start . the day forty minutes for us to come out on the street to protest against the announce a nice sentiment back save maybe take all the flak he's called was rubbish and. you know but when he wanted also it on the streets for his election we can make for do you think the protesters would accept any kind of compromise when it comes to this when the flag of which the flag turned out said. we know. and i want to get back up

to normal action because that's the majority really. any unionist horns now will try to reengage politically but we're told much more will need to be done they'll be quick fixes here i don't think there's any silver bullet i think there's so many different things need to happen economic. investment political investment community investment by and by all the stakeholders in these communities to try to resolve the wide draft of issues that are a blight here say far there's been a one hundred people arrested more than sixty police officers injured and millions of pounds spent in policing these riots and in lost business revenue. these riots have been highly localized damage has already been far reaching. this is a new generation putting violence back onto the streets of belfast it's

a far cry from the dark days of northern ireland's complex that doesn't make it any less troubling. the family of internet freedom activists aaron swartz has blamed the u.s. criminal justice system for his death the twenty six year old co-founder of social news website reddit hanged him self in his new york apartment on friday he faced thirteen felony charges connected with hacking the network of mit university and downloading academic papers online here before going to spend decades in prison for charges he pleaded not guilty to a representative of the pirate group from the berlin parliament says that just isn't fair. i definitely don't think this kind of disarmament is justified it is completely ridiculous people are being charged with fifty thousand dollars fines or just are not into music on the internet or in swat was putting fires on the internet that should have been on the internet. a long time ago and actually

j.-star. where the fire came from and said they wanted to put the fire on the internet anyway and swats just did a perfectly good job doing it and he actually took a lot of effort from them which would offend their efforts i think the system is rotten this case whenever it comes to internet freedom whenever it comes to copyright infringement then other senators other people in the house of representatives in the united states on the same side there is no differences. there they are five same side as hollywood does they are actually fighting for hollywood and making the last four of them it's sometimes it's ridiculous what they what they are thinking what would be a good law should always think what they thought the law actually happened effect on society and this is while carrying a very heavy legacy that will be difficult to fill a footstep but there are a lot of people that fight for the same goals that were tried to go into what's

what he was fighting for and i think the political movement that is fighting for free internet is the strongest now and we will get stronger in the next months and years and there is no no risk that this very heavy loss for the internet community will bring a stop to the political movement. a rebel spokesman in marley's says french aircraft bombed targets into central towns of the country at least eleven civilians including three children have been killed in a strikes and fighting since the french intervention was made public on friday the first french casualty in mali came on saturday when the pilot of a helicopter shot down by islamist rebels was killed the first task of troops in mali was to help the government we gain control of the central town of qana the neighbors of the west african states are also sending troops to help battle militants for all and said that the military operation in mali will continue for as long as necessary but france based independent journalist robert harneys says that the country's foreign policy contradicts itself. i think as long as the french

people are two of the. the consequences of this sort of intervention they generally favorite has a great military tradition in france and they've grown accustomed to interfering other people's countries and if you. need it starts to get nasty i think you'll find they'll be a very quick a reversal of public opinion the sort of islamic extremists they're very tough soldiers and they've grown tougher over the last twenty years and if france starts to find these people have been armed as a result of the intervention in libya and all the arms of the swilling about in the in the sahara as a result of that intervention ironically instigated by france then they're going to find it's a very dangerous place to intervene that mali has requested help and they get it instantly when the central african republic requested help from the french forces there they were told our no we can't interfere to tell any particular regime were

neutral so. the the east if you had wanted to destroy the credibility of france and the western countries over the last five or ten years you couldn't have done a better job by the absurd contradictions of what they do. also this week two french soldiers died in somalia during a failed mission to rescue a hostage who was also killed the raid began hours after french troops began the intervention to get rid of the is a must rebel groups in control of the northern part of the country are currently nine french people held hostage across northern africa. a new round of diplomatic efforts to solve the ongoing syrian crisis has failed to reach a breakthrough the un's international mediator lakhdar brahimi reiterated this week there can be no military solution to the conflict and moscow again voiced its support for a political transition adding that president assad's departure cannot be

a precondition for a deal to end the war meanwhile on the ground rebels seized a large air base a lot of regime forces bombarded opposition fighters out of the suburbs of the capital damascus earlier western experts claim the government might be hiding up to fifty tons of wrought your aim that's enough to make five nuclear bombs and after recent fears the regime may not control its massive stockpiles of chemical weapons there is now concern iranian may fall into the hands of islamic extremists the middle east commentator thinks that that issue was made up. now there is kind of a sequence a chain of alarmist scenarios that are being produced concerning chemical weapons on a nuclear granules top of the syrian regime there's a process of planning for that they authorized as western powers are imagining it and i think they're buying up all these different reasons for them to step in and take control of their own tree a country should happen i do want to start is that sat now they're afraid that iran

might get this uranium under interest on your own and in fact be conducting it now how much should i spend how did so i think it's another in this long list of possible reasons for good as to our western states to intervene and it seems that there's a lot of preparation for a pretext for stepping and should i cited for not taking control of the situation including the u.k. when the u.k. government decided to plan for that possibility so you see that there are mounted both failures engaged in that process which is kind of really shocking the fate of syria could be decided outside this blatantly. you're watching the weekly here in r.t. coming up this hour eleven years of indefinite detention without charge or trial if an innocent former inmate one time a bay which remains open despite barack obama's long running pledge to shut it down let's head for you just after the break.

join me on a journey to the heart of the problem to a place is hidden from the tourists you're going to meet some real criminal insiders although they may not be the usual news makers you see on t.v. . look at. this leader. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you

knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. and it continues here in r.t. thousands of russian opposition activists have marched in moscow to protest against a law banning u.s. citizens from adopting russian children of course was that the running. the protesters are demanding that the e.u. the authorities abolish the law passed recently which bans americans from adopting russian children now this button is part of the russian lawmakers response to the magnitsky act passed recently in the united states which gives the green light for sanctioning russian officials suspected there in the states off while eating human rights of the reason why russian lawmakers chose to balance from adopting

russian children is the true meaning pieces of luggage usually sometimes even deaths of russian kids after they were adopted and brought to the united states in fact the whole issue of the option has been quite a problem between russia and the united states for several years now and officials in moscow say it's not only the cases of abuse themselves but also the lack of a proper legal reaction from american authorities including the lack of heavy jail sentences which could have prevented these cases from happening again so authorities say that banning americans from adopting russian kids is actually aimed at protecting them and it's fair to say that they do have quite a large number of supporters in society in the washout just recently about why the russian girl in her blog online wrote a personal letter to president putin we signed the bill in the end asking him to change his mind to abolish this law she explained it by saying that in many cases

the orphans which are being adopted by americans and many foreigners but americans in this case they are disabled and they are simply not able to receive the proper medical attention here in russia and we both all over britain heard from the president's press secretary to the school who said that i was going to put in will review this walk post even though it's not an official request it's also right before the end of last year one of the russians newspapers managed to gather. around one hundred thousand signatures protesting this law and under the decree of the president. also passed a review this protest also needed to point out back to due to the current agreement between moscow and washington on adoption all those people who have already been able to find the children who are going to be adopted and brought to the united

states they're going to be able to finalize the process so these kids who are already sort of approved to be adopted be will be able to go to the united states all the way until two thousand and fourteen. one of the world's most the tourist attention facilities marked its eleventh grim anniversary this week with more than one hundred sixty people still being held there without charge or trial the closure of guantanamo bay is a promise barack obama has so far failed to keep what's more course to stop indefinite detention have largely died down in the us where even torture is gaining acceptability is going to teach gun explains. president obama's call to look forward not backward has resulted in attempts to sweep the past under the rug including some of his own promises earlier i intend to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that colonel morris davis was a chief prosecutor at guantanamo under george w. bush and he later became a vocal critic of the practices there and strongly supported president obama's pledge to shut down the prison he says the perception of guantanamo in the u.s.

has come a long way since two thousand and eight when he was a burning and highly controversial issue with the nation demanding action he gets a free pass on i mean the public largely could care less the mainstream media now here in the us. you know is more interested in car dash and then they are and what happens at guantanamo. so who's going to challenge it if we're looking for the biggest threat to america right now she's right there her name is kim carr does she in. america has moved on and so has its perception of torture post by the american red cross show the majority of americans now find torture acceptable sixty percent of young people agree whereas four years ago portugal's largely condemned in the us . hollywood has arguably contributed to that evolution of public opinion in the movie zero dark thirty day or trade the information that led to the capture

and killing of osama bin laden was obtained through enhanced interrogation techniques or torture and in fact that is simply not true actual information was obtained through a report based interrogation techniques the government classified everything related to its torture practices which allows politicians pundits and filmmakers the freedom to perpetuate all kinds of myths although a slew of washington insiders including the senate intelligence committee point out how torture has proved to be in effect. but in america it's often fiction not facts that make history this is more important than reality this is the movies where americans learn their history and today the history in the making is the drone strikes this amounts to the administration executing people without due process often in absolute secrecy in foreign lands with a remote control but it will obama's drones generate as much of

a backlash as one tunnel did for george w. bush that we've now got have a generation that only knows the post nine eleven era. where things like guantanamo and the. warrantless wiretapping that's all they've ever known you know for a decade now and i think it's just become an accepted part of life unfortunately judging by how the guantanamo controversy evolved here is what may transpire with regards to drones the urgency of the issue will subside in the west because there will be no american troops dying there will be no movement to oppose the program there may even be a movie or two that the logical capability of the drones and once the controversy dies down it will become the new normal and america will move on in washington i'm going to check the. israeli prime minister netanyahu has pledged to continue building settlements in the west bank his announcement came just hours after police

evicted around two hundred palestinian activists and protesters from a site marked for construction over the demonstrators promised to set up more camps in other areas but let's talk to one of those activists who was there. from the struggle coordination committee joins me now from jerusalem now your group is saying that this israeli eviction is illegal because the tent village which was the base of your protest was actually on private land do you think the issue of legality will help here. actually let's make one thing clear is that first of all this is this land was part of. most called in the in palestine ok what's a fitness in the end as palestine so a lot of the land in in one area is confiscated but this land in particular is still privately on and even israeli newspaper ha'aretz have done their research and

found out it's still proposed to him privately owned so of course the vision was illegal but you know with the patient forces they are above the law or allowed to fictional police obviously went ahead despite the fact using on private land what i do want to ask you what about international law recall international law that's on your side because international law regards israel's development on that land as being illegal so is that going to help you at all and so i can too. and circa who will let me just quickly ask you that question again what about international law or if. you can hear me at all or what i think we'll probably have to leave that then if you can hear it or not we'll try and do this a little bit later if we can sorry for that as i said we're trying to get back to maybe in the next hour here on r.t. the people of venezuela are still in suspense over the health of their leader hugo chavez who's recovering from cancer so drink you but only this week tens of

thousands held a rally at a symbolic inauguration ceremony is to have his official swearing in date was postponed indefinitely by the country's supreme court. from asia times online believes that with the protracted absence of the charismatic leader there is a severe power struggle now underway. so this war is not a monolithic saying like there exists a communist party in china they're actually east for five different factions fighting for power and this is one of the problems we have an unsteady situation in terms of chavez house because there will be an eternal struggle for power inside. him at the same time we're going to have more possibility just of for it there are serious trying to you know louvered this process and i mean actually our friends in washington all the news will see an opening well maybe this is the

beginning of the end of just let's get it out. the people of beijing are being given strict stay indoors warnings you can find out why it's too risky to go outside there don't come. and also thirteen year old boys travel to thousand kilometers across to international borders of the wheel of a car without raising any suspicion more on the under-age voyage on a web site. in just a few months the u.s. military in afghanistan will hand over leadership of combat operations to local forces and refocus on the says. in them the decision came off the discussions this week between the u.s. and afghan president spoken don't over promise is to pull all american troops out of the country and remove leverage to use worked extensively with u.s. diplomats in the middle east and asia believes the afghan leader is in a no win situation i think these talks are for the president and his national security principals to let afghanistan's president karzai down as softly as they

can to let him know that unfortunately they're not going to make good on their promise to completely train. the afghan military and police before u.s. troops leave i think this this visit is about trying to parse i know as nicely as they can that they're not going to make good on their promise to continue to defend afghanistan and train up afghanistan's military i think part of it is that president obama you know after he agreed to surge the troops into afghanistan i think pretty quickly realized that he didn't realize even before the surge that there is no military solution for the united states again afghanistan i think for an american population that is both battered financially and very tired of endless wars and occupations this is something that will basically go forward without a hitch in terms of american public opinion. in the midst of the economic crisis regulators are coming under fire for making life easier for banks rather than for

people and it appears the wider public knows little of how and where the big decisions about the global financial future are being made that is peter oliver now reports. have you ever heard the wall about the bank is the billions and bars all chances are you probably haven't but six times a year central bank heads from the u.s. europe asia and everywhere in between representing around three quarters of global economic output gather in the swiss city to talk shop behind closed doors i personally also don't like these secretive meetings because. you never know what in effect. is discussed in these meetings it's something that has a tradition that's put there play i mean bankers have always talked to each other in a more secretive way the whole business of banking is not really built on transparency but rather on trust and confidentiality the continuing global financial crisis has

seen the banking sector firmly in the spotlight with more than a few accusing fingers pointed in the direction of bankers it's the job of the secretive bars all committee to set regulations on banks the chairman of the group says he wants the public to be better informed about the work they do it's not that many years ago since this was basically a group of central banks it's expanded its membership considerably and in the process of that the whole governance arrangements of have changed as well and i think this is an attempt to explain to you in the world in general what those changes amount to and whether critics of the group are scathing in their criticism of what they see as an old boys club looking out for the needs of banking bosses as opposed to keeping the industry in line bears three has failed to meet any objective in the you know faint hope of. reining in the banks this this is what we talk about today the banks does have to be reined in because the banking system in

itself as a general rule has left its you know bottom sense despite mervyn king saying that he wants people to better understand what the basel committee actually do the very nature of the banking industry and its need for a certain level of secrecy means that the big decisions that will affect people all over the world will continue to be made by a small group of people we think in that building just behind me peter all over r.t. barsel switzerland. well that's it for the moment i'll be back with a news team with wolf in about half an hour from now in just a few minutes from now it will be touring parts of the moscow kremlin hidden from public view.

because of recent events guns have again and again become a big issue all over the usa both sides are throwing their talking point ammunition back and forth and we hear a lot of conflicting stories well in australia they got tough on guns and crime went down but then again others say in the u.k. they got rid of all their guns and all hell broke loose i've heard stories that you are way more likely to be killed by a deer in your headlights than get taken out by a maniac with a tech nine but then again i've heard that soon deaths from guns will exceed even deaths from car accidents japan is safe because it has no guns but switzerland is even safer because automatic weapons are all over the place the information is all very contradictory but ultimately it doesn't matter what facts and reports you throw at the other side the gun question is a philosophical one some people would rather at least feel like they have their fate in their own hands even if there is a chance they will shoot their own dog in the middle of the night and other people are so concerned with safety and are so full of fear for their fellow man that

they'd rather disarm everyone and leave all the weapons in the hands of the criminals or have them legal or not anyways and in the hands of the government who was seems pretty happy to use force at home and abroad i don't know i'd rather risk the unpredictable actions of some idiots out there in society but at least have the ability defend myself and have some control over my life and a means to resist oppression but that's just my opinion.